


A Paradox Cannot Exist

by alienchrist



Category: Saiyuki, Saiyuki Gaiden
Genre: M/M, Office Sex, Paradox, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-18
Updated: 2011-02-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 13:21:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7803562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienchrist/pseuds/alienchrist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a paradox cannot exist, but if it did, maybe it'd do something naughty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Paradox Cannot Exist

**Author's Note:**

> i honestly have no memory of writing this. it might've been for an exchange or for a kink meme - i'm not even sure i actually posted it anywhere. i have a sneaking suspicion i strongly disliked it at the time, but 5 years later i'm feeling more kindly toward it. if you remember when/why i wrote this, please tell me. i'm very confused.

Tenpou opened his eyes dazedly. He saw the scuffed and unimpressive underside of a desk directly above him. Right, then. An office. Judging from the unimpressively scant population of dust bunnies under the desk and filing cabinets, it definitely wasn’t _his_. There was a hum in the air Tenpou was unfamiliar with, a kind of buzzing whir. The office smelled strongly of tobacco. Beneath that, the thick smell of electricity and the acrid tang of antiseptic lingered.

Something white wiggled over the edge of the desk: the rubbed-thin ear of a child’s stuffed toy. The stuffed rabbit had a round head and little bead eyes, its mouth stitched into a vacant, happy smile. Whoever was holding it shook the toy and spoke for it. It was a man’s voice using a falsetto probably intended to be comical.

The rabbit bobbed its head as if in consternation. “What are you doing on the floor, mister?”

“Research,” Tenpou said with a vague laugh. He scooted out, sat up and flinched, more disoriented than he originally thought.

“Find anything interesting?” There was a dangerous edge to the rabbit’s speech.

“Aside from a grown man playing with toys? Ah, nothing out of the ordinary.” Tenpou stood up, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Is this your office?”

The man behind the bunny did a theatrical little bow. “Welcome to the office of Dr. Nii Jyianyi.”

Dr. Nii wore a lab coat and spectacles. With his hair unkempt and an array of fine stubble, he did not look like a doctor anyone would want to visit for a check-up. Still, his oily appearance could not hide the truth from Tenpou’s divine eyes. Nii was powerful, surrounded by a twisting, smoky-dark energy. It wafted around him like long strands of kelp, waiting as calmly as buzzards circling a lame calf. The energy was difficult to focus on. It gave Tenpou butterflies.

He needed to know more. Centuries of battling monsters had never brought him this close to this kind of power. Gods like Tenpou had little enough reason to cross the path of the mysterious building blocks of their world. It baffled him that such an irresponsible-looking person would be given the power.

Then again, Tenpou himself had been made marshal.

“What’s your name? It’s pretty rude for you to barge in and not introduce yourself. How _did_ you get in, anyway?” Nii’s tone was more amused than offended.

“My name is Tenpou.”

“And what are you, Tenpou?”

“I’m a who, not a what,” Tenpou said, adjusting his glasses primly. “And I already told you. I’m someone who’s doing research.”

It wasn’t a lie, really. Tenpou was always doing research, though not usually with live subjects.

The desk formed a tangible divide between them, one Tenpou was glad for in the awkward silence. As if to deliberately discomfort him, Nii imposed on Tenpou’s space by sitting on it, half-turned to Tenpou. He lit a cigarette. Out of habit more than anything else, Tenpou reached in his pocket for his own pack and turned up short.

It must have fallen out one the way here. Come to think of it, how he ended up here was still a bit muddled. Probably a side-effect of whatever-it-was.

“Want one?” Nii offered his open pack. Tobacco in the World Below had a different smell, Tenpou thought. There was something dirty about it. Or maybe it was something dirty about _Nii_.

“No thanks,” Tenpou said with an apologetic smile. He knew better than to take anything that was offered to him. There were stories like that, soldiers who strayed from paths and became trapped in the wrong world forever.

“That’s too bad,” Nii said, putting the cigarettes away. He gave his cigarette another idle puff, then rested it between two fingers. “Shall we begin?”

He slid off the desk, offering his arm. Tenpou looked at him quizzically.

“You’re here for research,” Nii said, “Don’t you want the tour?”

“Just a moment,” Tenpou said, holding up his hand. He dropped beneath the desk again. No stray packs of cigarettes, no sign of a door or a wormhole or anything else that would make any sense of his appearance here. He couldn’t have been here on a mission - he wasn’t in uniform.

Tenpou ran his hands along the underside of the desk. It was cheap wood, splintery. Nii leaned over to watch him. Tenpou felt, instinctively, that Nii was staring at his buttocks. Which was ridiculous. They were covered by his lab coat.

“Looking for something?” Nii asked snidely.

“Are _you_?”

“Nah,” Nii said, and Tenpou could hear the creak of his leather shoes as he leaned over to leer at him, “I’m good.”

Someone was coming. Tenpou recognized the click-click of heels against tile. Nii slid into his creaky office chair and gave Tenpou a firm shove that doubled as a rather generous ass-grab.

Tenpou crumpled up beneath the desk, Nii’s legs bracing him at either side. Nii’s shoes had probably never seen a day of polish and the seams on the cuffs of his trousers were frayed, but those weren’t the details that caught Tenpou’s attention. No, what interested Tenpou was the fact that Nii was half-hard. It seemed like an odd time to have a spontaneous erection. He wondered if Nii had been sporting it the whole time they were talking. Somehow, he just seemed like that kind of person.

Nii was talking to a woman. Tenpou couldn’t quite see her from where he was. He could really only see Nii’s legs and lap. Something fascinating was going on: the more Nii talked to this woman, belittled her with his jokes, the harder he got.

Tenpou ran his fingertips along the inside seam of his pants curiously. Ni stiffened his posture a fraction. Tenpou didn’t fight his grin - he liked getting reactions from people. His fingers crept upward, cupped what grew between Nii’s legs and squeezed.

Even a man who held building blocks to the world had this vulnerability. Tenpou felt like a child sneaking pieces of candy when the shop keep wasn’t looking. Every stolen movement was sweeter than it should have been.

Whenever Tenpou saw a big red button, he had to push it just to find out. In that line of logic, he couldn’t just leave this puzzle alone. He wanted to see what would happen. He pulled Nii’s zipper down tooth by tooth, timing it with the tedium of the woman’s words as she read off complaints and reports, her voice sharp.

In the guise of stretching his legs out beneath the desk, Nii hooked his knee over Tenpou’s shoulder and pulled him closer. It seemed only fair, then, that he continue this little game, and pulled Nii free from his trousers.

It was not the best blow job Tenpou had ever given. It probably wasn’t even in the top ten. But it had its moments, as he mouthed it silently, trying to get it spit-slick without making any noise. Nii exuded a heat like a fast-burning forest fire, yet he gave no light. If anything, he exuded the opposite. Though Nii drummed his fingers over the desk or played with his stuffed rabbit as he spoke, something played in Tenpou’s hair like fingers. It was the dark presence that surrounded Nii, the tendrils that had drawn Tenpou closer in the first place.

The presence made Tenpou feel hungry, made him feel mad, made him ache deep in his bones in ways his burgeoning erection couldn’t begin to satisfy. Nii was secondary to it, a flawed vessel, but in the dark, horrible moment of Tenpou opening his mouth to take him in, he saw truth. This was as close as someone bound to Heaven could ever get to the creation, and as close as he could ever be to apocalypse in his lifetime.

This ugly human had a chance to experience perfection like Tenpou had never known.

Tenpou kept going out of anger and stubbornness. There was a clarity in it, what he was doing. He was so wrapped up in it: the throb, the pulse, that sticky, bitter taste, that he did not realize the woman had gone. He did not realize Nii had kicked back the chair and was cradling his head. None of it really seemed real until Nii came, laughing and without warning. Tenpou received a mouthful of his bitter seed. It tasted strongly of tobacco.

Nii continued to cackle like a hyena until Tenpou found a dust bin to spit into.

“That’s probably as close to a blessing as I’ll ever receive!” he snickered, his hand on his forehead.

Tenpou wiped his mouth with the corner of his sleeve calmly. “Why did you ask what I was if you knew?”

“I wanted to see what you’d say.”

Tenpou sat on the desk carefully. The whole experience was tawdry in the worst way. Getting turned on by it? Also tawdry.

“Honestly, for a half a moment I thought you were here to destroy me. But you gods aren’t nearly that useful, are you?” Nii laughed long and hard, so much he was nearly crying.

“Ha ha, no comment.”

“Here,” said Nii, sidling up, sliding his hand up the length of Tenpou’s cock outlined in his trousers. “The least I can do is repay the favor. I usually don’t get this far on the first date without a little rohypnol, so, this truly is a special occasion.”

Tenpou looked into Nii’s eyes and saw at once how big and small mortals could truly be.

“You don’t hate it,” Nii said. He nuzzled Tenpou’s neck, the stubble scratched. 

“No,” Tenpou agreed. He tilted his head to afford him better access. A picture caught his eye.

The picture was ordinary, really, a pin-up girl in a red bustier wearing bunny ears. Here in the World Below they were called calendar girls or something like that. What disturbed him about the girl was the month and year printed beneath her.

Oh. Tenpou remembered now. This all came to pass because he was trying to avoid cleaning his office.

_”There’s no way I’m leaving you on your own to do this,” Kenren insisted. “If I leave you to clean on your own I’ll find you four hours later all caught up in some journal you thought you lost a year ago.”_

_“I wonder if it would be possible to create a small pocket dimension,” Tenpou thought aloud, his arms full of wrinkled papers and dog-eared books. “Just enough to stow all of this stuff for a few hours... or weeks... or years...”_

_“Or centuries,” Kenren finished. “You’ve looked through those, right? Here, into the trash bag.”_

_Tenpou tittered and threw away his armful._

_“Besides, you know that messing with holes and space and time have a nasty habit of creating paradoxes. That’s why we’re not supposed to mess with that stuff. The magic isn’t precise enough to really be sure of where that hole’s gonna open up.”_

_Tenpou watched Kenren bend over to pick up a scrap of paper and smiled to himself, thinking about holes and things opening up._

_“Everyone knows paradoxes can’t exist,” Tenpou said, “By virtue of them being impossible, the universe won’t allow them.”_

_“Since when is the universe that tidy?” Kenren grumbled. He sneezed, upsetting a cloud of dust. Tenpou only laughed._

The second disquieting revelation came as Nii was pinching his nipples. Tenpou had a habit of giggling a little when his partner got aggressive. It wasn’t exactly nervousness - more like polite mockery.

The behavior was bizarre enough that Nii stopped and gave him a long, hard look. “What?”

“Ah, do continue,” Tenpou chuckled. “Really. That was quite nice.”

Nii paused. “You don’t... have any mortal offspring, do you?”

Tenpou closed his eyes a moment. He saw a flash of green.

_”Even if a paradox were created,” Tenpou explained to Kenren, “The universe would have to correct itself. Like when you get drunk, eventually you have to sober up. Your body regulates these things.”_

_“Yeah, but you get hung over first.”_

Nii was still staring. “Wait,” he said, suppressing laughter, “Don’t tell me you’re--”

“Not really supposed to be here? Pin-pon! You win. Here’s your prize.” Tenpou kissed Nii gently on the cheek. It probably _was_ as close as the poor man (priest?) would ever get to a blessing. “I really must get going.”

The darkness flared up. Nii’s dark eyes took on a dull shine, his expression inscrutable, his smile hollow, jagged and frozen on his face. “I don’t like it when the toys I like get up and leave me, isn’t that right, little bunny?”

That damned bunny. Nii was lifting it now, making it nod a little. Tenpou attempted to back up a little. His slipper fell off. It did not hit the floor, but vanished into the glimmering vortex that had just now opened beneath the desk.

_”So even if you ended up somewhere you weren’t supposed to be, you couldn’t really stay there long enough to create more paradoxes,” Tenpou reasoned, “No harm no foul!”_

_“Knowing you, you’d figure out a way to destroy the world anyway.”_

Nii’s power burned. Not only did it not give off light, it sucked away the available light in the room. He drew shadows toward him.

Tenpou scooted back a little more. His hand touched a newspaper.

_”So I’ll test it first. Make one that sends me back right away so I can’t do any damage.”_

_“I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I? Is this a good time to remind you we need this entire place cleaned by tomorrow evening? Or that we use the Gate for a damned good reason?”_

Tenpou remembered what he sometimes saw Konzen do with Goku when he misbehaved. Nii was a fascinating person. Destructive, cold and very possible evil with a capital E. But _this_ was not the time for Tenpou to punish him, just like _this_ was not the time for Nii to have a chance to challenge Heaven with his power and nerve.

(He felt, instinctively, that Nii would someday. Perhaps because he and Nii were just similar enough that he could imagine doing the same.)

Tenpou quickly folded up the fan and smacked Nii on the head with it. However, he did it with a gods’ strength, and sent Nii crashing into a filing cabinet. The bunny bounced ineffectively on the ground.

Tenpou swung around and dove into the vortex beneath the desk head first.

There was whiteness and warmth. Tenpou thought he heard the sound of a Jeep driving somewhere far away.

Tenpou opened his eyes dazedly. He saw piles of books, and one of his slippers not too far away. So he returned safely. Good.

The floor beneath him was oddly warm and pliant, though. Almost like a person.

“Fucking ow,” Kenren said from beneath him, and then, “Do I even want to know what just happened?”

“Probably not,” Tenpou said in a sing-song voice. “But when has that ever stopped me?”

“Then tell me once we’re done,” Kenren said, squirming out from beneath his prostrate marshal. He took a good look at Tenpou, flushed, mostly unbuttoned, and obviously unready to move. Tenpou was possibly the only god who could look both horny and self-deprecating.

“I think I just did something impossible,” Tenpou said, sounding distant.

“That doesn’t get you off the hook,” Kenren said. He helped Tenpou to his feet and handed him a broom.

Tenpou decided it would be nice to do something ordinary for the rest of the day.

**Author's Note:**

> tbh the most relatable thing about tenpou is his messiness, i would probably risk a time paradox to avoid cleaning my desk too.


End file.
